NPowerTray : Access Power Options from System Tray

When Windows 8 was first released without any Start Menu, many users started to look for alternatives. Though now Microsoft has brought back the Start Menu in Windows 8.1, yet people still find it difficult to access all the power options. The freeware NPowerTray adds all types of power options (shutdown, hibernate, suspend, log off etc.) to the notification area of Windows and allows you to access them very easily at the click of a button. It also has options which allow you to shutdown the computer after a pre-specified delay of time.

You can get the NPowerTray application from its Github webpage. The downloaded package contains a portable application which you can extract to a folder and run it from there. The program is designed using the .NET 4.0 technology and so must install Microsoft .NET 4 framework before you can run it.

As soon as you launch NPowerTray, it installs an icon in the notification area. You can right-click on this icon to access all types of power options – shutdown, reboot, hibernate, sleep, lock, log off, change user and hybrid shutdown. You can also just double-click on the notification area icon to shutdown Windows.

If you want to shutdown after some time, then you can access those options using the Shutdown after sub-menu. You can set Windows to shutdown after a period of 5 minutes to 24 hours. You cannot specify a custom time period of your own choice.

Under the Special options sub-menu, you can choose to forcibly perform all these power actions – force reboot, force shutdown, force hibernate and so on. The same section also contains options to disable wakeup events for Windows while making Windows to hibernate or sleep.

The options for NPowerTray are hidden in the About dialog. You can open this dialog, by right-clicking on the NPowerTray system tray icon and selecting About. Here you can find options to automatically start NPowerTray with Windows, and checking for updates.

Conclusion: The NPowerTray is a small program that adds various shutdown options for Windows in the system tray. It allows you to shutdown, hibernate, reboot or log off Windows just by right-click on the NPowerTray system tray icon. There are delayed shutdown options for various time durations too.